Totem Poles

Art of the Pacific Northwest Natives

Stuff You Should Know

What is a totem pole?

• A totem pole is a piece of artwork that was originally created by the Native Americans of the Pacific Northwest.

What is a totem pole?

• Totem poles were carved out of giant cedar trees by the Northwest Coastal Indians.

• Totem poles were used as a way of passing down stories.

What is a totem pole?

• Totem poles were used to represent a tribe, clan, family, or person.

• Having a totem pole was a great honor.

How were they carved?

• After a tree was cut down, carvers would begin at the top and work their way down.

• A totem pole could be big or small. A large totem pole might be more than 60 feet high and could take two to three years to carve!

• Once carved, poles were painted with natural paints and were most often black, red, blue, green, and white.

Your totem pole piece

• Together we will create a set of class totem poles!

• Each student will select an animal that they think best represents themselves.

• They will create a stylizeddrawing of the animal, and then paint their own piece of the pole!

Art Definitions

• Stylized

• Abstract

• Color Scheme

• Contrast

• Line Quality

• Recognizable

• Not Recognizable

• Certain Group of Colors

• Bold outlines & Color Changes

• Thickness or thinness of a line

Eagle

Killer Whale

Salmon

Bear

Owl

Wolf

Raven and Moon

Owl

Now it is your turn! PLAN PLAN PLAN!

• Go to the computer lab. Take your sketchbook & pencil.

• Print out 3 images of animals that are most personal to you.

• Sketch out 3 different stylized animal designs. Each design should fill up an entire sketchbook page. Each design should be outlined in sharpie with varied line quality! Each design should be colored in colored pencil This will help us plan the color scheme!!